˜Theœ Child's Creation of A Pictorial World

In this book for psychologists, art therapists, and students, Golomb (University of Massachusetts) uses a developmental framework that combines theory with empirical investigations to reveal insights on the mental processes that underlie children's drawings. She examines the artwork of normal and talented children and children who are emotionally disturbed or developmentally disabled, illustrating concepts with b&w and some color reproductions of children's art. This book places child art within the broader context of children's creative intelligence and intrinsic motivation to invent a pictorial world. It examines the development of drawing and painting from several currently dominant theoretical perspectives. This is followed by an extensive examination of empirical data on the art work of children who are ordinary, talented, emotionally disturbed, and atypically developed due to mental disability or autism. The Child's Creation of a Pictorial World uses a developmental framework that combines theoretical sophistication with rigorous empirical investigations into the mental processes that underlie the child's drawings. It delineates the evolution of forms, the pictorial differentiation of figures and their spatial relations, the role of color in narrative descriptions, and its expressive function. Artistic development across all these dimensions is seen as a meaningful mental activity that serves cognitive, affective, and aesthetic functions. -- Publisher's description

The Child's Creation of a Pictorial World constitutes real, needed progress in the literature on child art. It offers systematic evidence in many areas in which people in the field have been going on mere assumptions, and it views the whole field from a theoretical vantage point that supersedes many by now outdated assumptions. It also offers a better integration of two areas that so far have been poorly related, namely the clinical and diagnostic approach on the one hand and the developmental and cognitive one on the other. . . . A must for anybody concerned with the artwork of children, that is, people in art education, developmental psychology, and education in general. The writing is lucid, concrete, and systematic. . . . Originality, high scientific level, and intellectual acuity combine with the human presence of an author thoroughly devoted to young life.—Rudolf Arnheim, author of Art and Visual Perception

"The Child's Creation of a Pictorial World places child art within the broader context of children's creative intelligence and intrinsic motivation to invent a pictorial world. It examines the development of drawing and painting from several theoretical perspectives before examining empirical data on the artwork of children who are ordinary, talented, emotionally disturbed, and atypically developed due to mental disability or autism." "The Child's Creation of a Pictorial World is intended for a broad readership of developmental psychologists, educational psychologists, clinical psychologists who use drawings for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes, anthropologists interested in art, art educators, and early childhood educators. It can also serve as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses in child art offered in departments of psychology, art education, art history, and early childhood education."--BOOK JACKET From Action To Representation: The Origins Of Early Graphic Forms -- The Puzzle Of The Tadpole Man -- Differentiation Of Forms And Early Graphic Models -- Space: In Search Of The Missing Dimension -- Color, Affect, And Expression: The Depiction Of Mood And Feelings -- Composition: The Creation Of Pictorial Space And The Communication Of Meaning -- Gifted Child Artists -- Art, Personality, And Diagnostics -- The Child As Art Critic -- Reflections On Cultural Variables. Claire Golomb. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [363]-373) And Indexes. "Explores child art as an expression of visual thinking--the symbol-making function of the brain which produces images rather than words ... with more than 200 examples in color and black and white"--Back cover.